Social Media For Networking and Marketing for Massage Therapists

Information

The purpose of this Social Media for Networking and Marketing for Massage Therapists is to offer people in the massage community an opportunity to support one another and share ideas and information regarding utilizing social media.

Discussion Forum

Hi! Newbie here (awaiting the last of my licensing paperwork to come in the mail). I often scan Meet Up and other "on-line/in-person" social networking groups for occasions to mingle with potential…Continue

What are you doing to prepare your marketing for the holidays?I got excited and started thinking about marketing for the holidays when someone mentioned Black Friday and I thought, oops, it’s time to…Continue

Hello from London! Can anyone suggest good places I can market my books for massage therapists? My publishers (Human Kinetics) have asked if I can help promote my books on Soft Tissue Release and…Continue

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Trade organizations, vendors, and physicians are using social media to connect and to offer information

Health IT professionals were early adopters and are cautious but active users

Social media is having an impact and what exactly the impact is remains mostly unknown. Like the days when the popular call to action was “Go West!” many pioneers have begun blazing trails. What were once long distances and barren lands are now filled in with a network of highways, flight patterns, and many, many communities.

The unfolding of social media, I believe, is having a similar impact, especially in health care. Social media includes many different things including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. It is, simply stated, media built for social interaction. The call today is “Go Share, Like, & Tweet!”

There have been many pioneers in social media, and some industries have adopted the electronic social interaction modes more aggressively than others. While health care may not be one of the early adopters, there are certainly pockets of adoption, and social media is spreading quickly in health care.

In my experience, the activity and state of health care and social media can be summarized in the matrix below. There are four major categories of participants in health care — Trade Organizations & Publications, Vendors, Physicians & Clinicians, and Health IT CIOs & Professionals. As the placement and arrows in the matrix indicate, each of these groups is in a different stage and moving at a different pace in their social media adoption. Why are these groups participating in social media? Outlined below are my observations.

Trade Organizations & Publications: This group wants to connect with their members and the larger community and provide a reliable news source of industry updates. Social media options translate into different channels where content can be loaded and opportunity for interaction can happen. The primary purpose is reach. Two examples are HIMSS and AMA; each has a different constituency and approach to social relationships.Vendors: Their most obvious reason to participate is their customers and prospects, with whom they must position themselves and interact, share, and engage with. Social media provides, again, the different channels to let the community know about their products and services.Physicians & Clinicians: This segment may be the most interesting. Physicians and clinicians are one of the increasingly more active audiences in health care. They use social media to communicate with patients, discuss health care reform and regulations, and share experiences with new technologies and other best practices. The patient interaction is especially interesting and raises some concerns about how much to share and what to share. To get a sense of what is happening, I would recommend checking out the following three physicians: 33 Charts, Seattle Momma Doc, and KevinMD.com.

Health IT Professionals: The final segment contains what would have been the most cautious and hesitant settlers of the West — health IT managers, directors, professionals, and CIOs. These are the people who implement applications like Electronic Health Record systems; maintain the IT infrastructure in the hospitals, labs, imaging centers, and clinics. They support the physicians and clinicians by keeping the “lights on” for all supporting systems. A critical role, no doubt. The social media activity here is low; however, one of the very early adopters, and still very active, is Life as a Healthcare CIO. Just as physicians share lessons learned, there is a big opportunity to do the same in the health IT segment.Land and territory are being claimed along the new media frontier. It will be interesting to watch and participate, and see how social media ultimately changes patient interaction. More resources are coming available to educate and guide us as this phenomenon unfolds.

A few to watch include: Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media

Ragan’s HealthCare Marketing & Communication News

On Facebook, Health Care Social Media Silicon Valley

On Twitter or using Twitter search, take a look at some of the discussions taking place at the hashtags #hcsm (health care social media) and #HITsm (health IT social media)

The wild west of social media in health care is upon us! Tune in and join.

About The AuthorJon Mertz, Vice President of Marketing, Corepoint Health

Jon Mertz is the Vice President of Marketing at Corepoint Health, a leading healthcare integration software company.

How Technology Changed Entrepreneurship

Historically, advances in technology have led to major changes in the way businesses operate -- the ways technology has recently impacted entrepreneurship and small businesses is a prime example of this.

Here's a look at how entrepreneurship and small businesses have changed this year:

The Power of Social Media2010 has been a busy year for social media. Facebook launched its Deals section to help local businesses target specific audiences, Groupon became the largest coupon-sharing site, and Twitter received investments from Kleiner Perkins and other venture capitalists, turning it into a $3.7 billion company.

As social media becomes more entrenched in our daily lives, small businesses are using it to reach out to potential customers in greater numbers, reportedMerchantCircle, a social network for small businesses with more than 1.3 million members.

More than half of MerchantCircle’s members have created a social networking profile versus 48 percent in Q2 and Q1 of 2010, reported the site. When asked about the services they use to promote their businesses in Q3, 33 of the respondents used Bing (versus 23 percent in Q2), 55 percent used LinkedIn (versus 43 percent in Q2) and 32 percent used Yelp (versus 22 percent in Q2). Additionally, Facebook usage among small businesses jumped from 60 percent to 69 percent over the last quarter.

Online advertising has also grown significantly over the past year. U.S. online publisher sites delivered more than 417 billion ad impressions in September 2010, an increase of 26 percent versus a year ago, according to comScore.

Whether or not these efforts are translating into real profits is still debatable, however. More than 75 percent of small business owners said they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn useful for generating business leads or expanding business, according to a survey conducted for Citibank Small Business last year.

The idea of working from home is not new. What is new is that technology is enabling more companies to shed their physical offices and set up virtual offices, complete with receptionists and a brick and mortar address.

Statistics about the number of people who work from virtual offices were not available, however, self-employed workers were three times more likely than other workers to work at home, according to a survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Self-employed workers can maintain the appearance of heading a larger enterprise thanks to cloud computing services and web-based tools like voice-over-Internet protocol. With VOIP, clients can call a number that is answered by a receptionist who will then transfer the caller to you even if all three parties are in different states.

As for having a physical address, you can “rent” an address from highly sought after locations, while paying only a fraction of the cost. A 27-year-old entrepreneur, Scott Gerber, rented an address in New York City for $300 a month through ManhattanVirtualOffice.com, reported The New York Times in a recent article.

"He says it saved him $100,000 in rent and gave Sizzle It the credibility it needed to start attracting clients that now include Proctor & Gamble and the Gap. He does most of his actual work at home and in coffee shops and shared work spaces," wrote Hannah Seligson.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is another cost-saving innovation, which allows businesses to operate online without having to maintain their own servers, routers and other expensive hardware.

Innovations that make communication between businesses and their customers easier and more affordable are clearly here to stay. Networking sites and location-based services are likely to continue growing as virtual marketplaces where merchants hawk their wares and people shop and share information about their purchases. As we move further into another decade, who knows what new innovations are coming next.

I just received this email from the Healing Touch community. Greg Pitstick did a training last year around this same time, which I took. It was definitely worth my time. It's all online, so you can watch it at your convenience. Though at the end he's "selling" his services, he also gives a lot of good information during the free training. I really do recommend it. You'll need to register asap. Laurie

Dear Laurie,

I wanted to remind you to register for the free online training event "How to Attract Clients Without Selling" being offered free to our community by Greg Pitstick and Smart Guide To Marketing.

The online training event will be held Thursday October 21, 2010 at 9:00pm eastern time , but there are only 3 days left to register.

In case you're in need of a new website, or an upgrade, I highly recommend using WordPress. WordPress is easy to use, and means that you never have to have a Webmaster again. I have been following these FREE WordPress webinars, presented by GoForYourDream, and I recommend them highly.

I would like to extend an invitation to list in my holistic wellness directory. The basic listing is free. You will be listed alphbetically as well as by state. The premium listing is $20/year that allows you more exposure, links, a photo and submission of articles. The link is http://www.synergisticcenter.com/Directory-listing-form.html